Suppose that an oil-fired power plant is designed to produce 100 MW (megawatts) of electrical power. The turbine operates between temperatures of 650°C and 240°C and has an efficiency that is 80% of the ideal Carnot efficiency for these temperatures.
a. What is the Carnot efficiency for these temperatures?
b. What is the efficiency of the actual oil-fired turbines?
c. How many kilowatt-hours (kW·h) of electrical energy does the plant generate in 1 h? (A kilowatt-hour is an energy unit equal to 1 kW of power multiplied by 1 h.)
d. How many kilowatt-hours of heat must be obtained from the oil in each hour? e. If one barrel of oil yields 1700 kW·h of heat, how much oil is used by the plant each hour?